Nearly everything we do leaves behind some kind of waste. During the 1980's, waste management issues became a matter of heightened public concern because of increasing waste production, shrinking landfill capacity, rising disposal costs, public opposition to new landfills, and public concern for the health of the planet. All of these factors have increased the importance of thoughtfully managing waste.
An article of waste can be considered to be unwanted matter, which is left after useful substances or parts have been used, or alternatively, an article of waste can be considered a post-consumption item or material, a resource to be recycled or handled in a particular way to increase usefulness or to decrease harmfulness. Almost all post-consumption items (which include both the post-consumption items themselves and/or the containers that house the items) are either recyclable or should be managed in some particular way (e.g., hazardous materials should be isolated from non-hazardous materials to avoid contaminating the non-hazardous materials, hazardous materials should be properly disposed).
Households, for example, typically generate recyclable post-consumption items and materials such as cereal boxes and other paper products, steel and aluminum cans, plastic milk and juice cartons, glass jars, and so on. Industries, manufacturers, commercial establishments, agricultural concerns and so on also typically generate recyclables.
Recycling is one method that increases the usefulness of post-consumption items. Recycling includes a series of activities associated with collecting and re-using materials that would otherwise fill landfills. Recycling includes sorting and processing recyclables into component materials and using these component materials to manufacture new products. Household and business-generated recyclables typically are collected at the curb, are taken to drop-off centers or buy-back centers, or are collected through deposit/refund programs. After collection, recyclables are typically sent to a materials recovery facility to be sorted and prepared into marketable commodities for input to further manufacturing processes. Recyclables generated by industries, manufacturers, agricultural concerns, and the like are frequently sold to materials recovery facilities, brokers, or manufacturers under private contracts.
Recycling typically depends largely on manual labor-intensive tracking and sorting operations. For example, consumers and businesses typically separate their post-consumption items into recyclables and non-recyclables, and separate recyclables into different categories (e.g., paper, plastic, aluminum, and so on). As with all manual labor-intensive activities, these processes are error prone. For example, a consumer may not have time or the inclination to separate recyclables from non-recyclables, resulting in recyclables that needlessly end up in an incinerator or landfill. There are other problems with manual sorting as well. A consumer may not place a recyclable in the proper recycling container (e.g., may place a glass jar in the “plastic” recycling bin). Hence, even after recyclables are sorted into categories, they typically are inspected and resorted before further processing, adding to the costs involved with recycling. Once separated and cleaned, these post-consumption items and materials may be ready to be recycled into new products.
More and more of today's products are being manufactured completely or partially from recycled materials. Consumers increasingly demand more environmentally-friendly products, thereby encouraging manufacturers to produce recycled products and to recycle items and materials used in the manufacturing process. It can only be expected that recycling will increase rather than decrease as the earth's resources are depleted and as people become increasingly concerned about the planet's health.
In addition to generating general recyclables, households may also produce post-consumption products containing hazardous materials that should receive special handling. For example, a diabetic in the household may generate, syringes, lancets, blood-contaminated alcohol pads, and the like. Empty (and not-so-empty) cans of paint and bug spray also constitute hazardous materials typically generated by households. This type of post-consumption product ideally should be separated from other products containing non-hazardous materials to prevent contamination of the non-hazardous materials, and typically should receive special treatment to reduce the volume or harmfulness of the hazardous material. Many household hazardous materials can also be recycled but may need special handling in the process.
Industries, manufacturers, commercial establishments, and agricultural concerns also typically create hazardous byproducts that may or may not be recyclable but should be tracked and handled in a particular way. In industry, a manifest is typically used to track and manage hazardous materials. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulates some types of hazardous waste by requiring that it be tracked with a manifest and by requiring those who generate, recycle, treat, store and/or dispose of hazardous wastes to have permits for their operation. Treatment of hazardous waste, like manual sorting of recyclables, is also subject to human error. For example, workers may incorrectly identify or classify hazardous wastes, leading to inefficiencies in processing, or worse. Many hazardous post-consumption products generated by industry can also be recycled to save resources and frequently, reduce production costs.
Hence, a need exists for an automated, less labor-intensive, less error-prone way to identify, track, sort, distribute, and broker post-consumption items and materials.